


i hate you, but not really

by orphan_account



Category: Lego Ninjago
Genre: M/M, Post S3, its BONDING, its romance but only at the very end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-26
Updated: 2019-12-26
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:22:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21965626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: In the aftermath of the Digital Overlord, Cole brings an injured Kai to safety.
Relationships: Cole/Kai (Ninjago)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 119





	i hate you, but not really

**Author's Note:**

  * For [plasma_shipping](https://archiveofourown.org/users/plasma_shipping/gifts).



> enjoy some actual prose, and merry christmas jack!!! also happy holidays to everyone reading! :D
> 
> this is the first ship fic ive written like, ever, so i hope its not too bad ;)

The balcony's railing was cold on Cole's palms as he hoisted himself over, using the last bit of his strength to land on the balcony and fall flat onto his back. His stomach was in knots, his heart pounding against his chest; he swallowed in huge gulps of air, felt the air against his dry throat. He needed water, but he knew that wasn't an option. Not for now.

He raised a finger to his ear and pushed down.

"I'm tapping out," he said into the earpiece. "Be back in a few."

His teammates sent a flurry of acknowledgments, knowing all too well the perils of exhaustion in a fight as large as this one. They were trying to contain it, but it had already spread to span several city blocks, and Cole feared that much of downtown Ninjago City would be destroyed before the nindroid army had recuperated enough to offer reinforcements. Borg was keeping them updated on their status, but it seemed like linking them all together again was going to take a little longer than preferable after the Overlord's takeover.

As the worst of the exhaustion faded, he sat up and looked through the railing's bars. The corrupted nindroids, the ones not cured by the Overlord's death, soldiered on through the city's core. They gathered in clusters, wary of any ninja that could attack them. In a way, this was a relief: unlike before, they were no longer acting as a solid unit, and seemed to not have any formal communications with each other.

They were unlinked from the system. From up on the balcony, he could plot out his next move. If he moved quietly enough, he could take them out one by one, cluster by cluster, until he made his way back to where another ninja was fighting. There were a little over one hundred of them, but despite his weariness, he wasn't too worried. Once the nindroids came in, this would be a piece of cake. They just needed to stay smart until then.

He took in another deep breath, feeling his heart slow. He could do this.

A spike of cold hit his nose. He prodded it with his finger, but brought back only a droplet of water. His eyebrows furrowed and he looked up.

Snow fell in large flakes from the grey clouds, and his face grew hot despite the chilly air. He swallowed and rolled his shoulders, trying to get rid of the heavy feeling in his chest. It wasn't supposed to be snowing anymore. It had already been a day since—

Annoyed at himself for thinking of it, he vaulted over the railing and let the adrenaline push his feelings away. His feet hit the ground, he ducked into a roll, and then sprung back to his feet and took off towards the closest cluster of corrupted nindroids.

After weeks of dealing with them, taking out three or five at a time was almost _easy_. He dodged their repetitive blows, targeted their right eyes with his attacks, and then moved on. Unlike the other ninja, he didn't need a weapon to defeat a nindroid—using his Earth strength to dig in his fingers and rip out their eyes was good enough.

It was a double-edged sword, unfortunately. His powers were new to him, and their constant use drained him. At the end of the city block, five clusters later, he considered calling in for another break. He hated his lethargy, especially compared to his teammates' seemingly boundless energy, but he knew that he was more useful to them alive than dead on the street, so he ducked into an alleyway to rest for a few minutes.

He'd barely had a moment to breathe when he heard it.

A yell echoed through the brick walls of the buildings around him. A very human yell. A very _familiar_ yell.

He recognized it immediately. _Kai_.

Foregoing his exhaustion, he moved quickly to the other end of the alleyway, where he peeked out to locate his friend among the chaos. On the other side of the street, one hand carrying a katana and the other clasped over his side, Kai faced down two nindroids alone. Cole could tell from his ragged posture that he was injured, and he swung his sword around aimlessly, shouting words at them too quiet for Cole to pick up.

A gust of wind blew past him and the snow in front of him turned into a frenzy. He didn't have time to observe. He had to act.

HIs thick boots pounded on the concrete below as he pushed off towards Kai, leaping over the median in the middle of the road and homing in on his targets. As one raised its arm blaster toward Kai, Cole grabbed its shoulder with his large hand and yanked it down hard onto the pavement.

He didn't need to use his super strength to slam his heel into the nindroid's eye. When he pulled away, the right side of its head was caved in, leaving nothing but a sparking mess beneath him. Cole tried not to think of _him_ and turned back to Kai. The red ninja, still a great fighter despite his injury, stood over a fallen nindroid with his katana sticking out of its eye.

Kai didn't stay standing for long. His eyes squeezed shut in pain, and he took one, two steps back before collapsing against the wall. He slid to the floor and Cole rushed over without hesitation.

"What happened?" he asked, but it wouldn't take a doctor to figure out the answer. He reached forward and met Kai's eyes, a silent consent to take his wrist and remove his hand from its place over his wound. Cole lifted the ninja's shirt and gasped.

"It's not too bad," Kai lied. Cole's eyes narrowed as he leaned in closer, tracing the wound with his fingers. Kai'd been blasted by a nindroid's laser, just below the left side of his ribcage, where the new hole in the flesh was deep and burnt to a crisp; black and red, just like their respective colours, swirling together in a way that made Cole's stomach flip.

He looked over his shoulder. More clusters of nindroids were clustered just down the block and he swiftly remembered that they weren't safe here.

Carefully, he lowered the shirt back over the wound and helped Kai to his feet. "Come on. Let's get you back to Borg Tower," he said. "They'll fix you up."

Kai resisted, pushing Cole away. He winced at the action and brought his hand back to cover the shot wound. "No, that's on the other side of town. You can't bring me. They need you here!"

Cole looked at Kai's state and frowned. "No offense, but I'm not too confident about your chances of survival if I leave you alone. Just let me help you. I'll come right back."

Kai hesitated, then slowly put his arm over Cole's shoulders. Carefully, Cole wrapped his arm around Kai's side, careful not to rest his hand too close to the wound. Cole took a step, guiding Kai along, and then stopped. He glanced at his friend.

"Is this okay?" he asked. It was hard to tell what Kai was feeling, eyes shut tightly and the rest of his face hidden by a mask. For a moment, he had an impulse to lift his mask so he could see his face better, but he pushed the thought away. He'd known Kai for a year or so now—it was so hard to keep track of the time when they were always on the move, wasn't it?—and if there was anything he'd learned about his red-clothed friend, it was that he was quick to anger and even quicker to hide upon displaying any form of vulnerability. Cole didn't want to risk setting him off by removing a mask that likely helped him save face in this moment of weakness.

Kai gave a quick nod. His voice was raspy. "Yeah, it's fine."

Cole tried not to look too concerned and continued to take steps down the street, careful to keep an eye out for nindroids. The last thing he wanted to do was fend off enemies right now.

They rounded a corner. Down the main road that led to Borg Tower, the other ninja were fending off what seemed to be a small army. For a moment, Cole watched in awe as they seemed to fly across the street, using a combination of Spinjitzu and their powers to take out as many nindroids as they could.

Kai let out a low whine and Cole broke his attention away from the spectacle before him. _Right_ , he reminded himself. _Gotta go_.

He looked around for a route, surveying the various streets and intersections he could see from the corner. Occasionally, he saw one of the ninja jump into a side street, leading him to the conclusion that there were batches of nindroids hidden behind buildings, waiting to ambush him when he turned the corner.

He sighed and looked down. "How do you feel about a piggyback?"

"I'm trying _not_ to die," Kai replied bluntly. "Figured you don't want two casualites in the same week."

Cole ignored the sting of the last comment and shifted his position, kneeling so Kai could easily climb onto his back. Wordlessly, Kai abided to Cole's will, wrapping his legs around his torso and his arms around his chest. He mashed his face into Cole's shoulder as soon as he started to move, pressing into it roughly. Cole didn't know if it was an attempt to seek comfort or edge off some of the pain. Perhaps both.

"Hang on," Cole instructed. He jumped in the air, grabbing onto the second floor balcony of the apartment building next to him. He was grateful it wasn't very tall, allowing him to scale the balconies quickly, moving fast so Kai wouldn't have to hold on for too long. Despite the intensity of some of their past arguments, he wasn't too interested in dropping him onto the pavement with what was effectively a bullet wound in his side.

He climbed over the side and dropped onto the flat, cement rooftop. The brick barrier was a few feet high, and he was grateful for it. As he helped Kai get off his back, he kept a firm grip and lowered him to the floor, where he could sit against the brick wall.

Once Kai was settled in, he lifted up his top to re-inspect the wound. It was bad. But fixable.

"Do you think the blast hit any organs?" Cole asked, but it was procedural, the question Zane usually asked them when he patched them up on the field. He was good at this; at anatomy, medicine, the whole thing. Cole was not. He just hoped that what he'd learned from watching Zane would be good enough to keep Kai okay until the battle was over.

"Do I look like the kinda guy that knows where his fucking organs are?" Kai snapped. "Explain to me the difference between a stomach and a liver right now. 'Cause I don't know, and I bet you don't either, _arts school drop out._ "

"I didn't drop out," Cole corrected him. He bit into his gi's sleeve, ripping it from the seams. He spoke with a mouth full of cloth. "I ran away. There's a difference."

Kai rolled his eyes. "Sure. Okay."

Finally, he ripped off the fabric. His right arm was bare, but in a way, he'd always preferred to be sleeveless, anyways. He took the long, black piece of cloth in his hands and brought it to Kai's waist. "Don't sass me while I help you," Cole quipped. "I can leave right now. I can just climb back down to the street and pretend I never found you. 'Where did Kai go?', they would ask, and I would just shrug my shoulders and act like I didn't know. And they would never doubt me. Because they trust me too much to think I would never lie, and they trust that you're stupid enough to go off on your own and get hurt. So, as I said: don't test me right now."

Cole wrapped the fabric around his waist, looping it around one, two, three times, until it was snug over the wound. He tied it into one of the only secure knots he knew and pulled down Kai's shirt.

Kai crossed his arms and poorly hid a wince. "Die mad about it."

"I'm not the one that's going to."

Kai scowled. An expression of what Cole could only describe as _animosity_ passed through Kai's eyes, albeit briefly, and he felt something coil in his stomach as the red ninja spoke.

"Ugh. Why did it have to be you?" Kai asked, throwing his head back to stare at the grey sky. "It could have been Nya. Maybe even Lloyd or Jay. But _you_ were the one that had to find me."

"I didn't realize it was such a problem," Cole muttered. In a normal situation, he would have left already. His continuous clashes with Kai drained him of energy, and some form of tension was always bound to erupt between the two, so he avoided being alone with him for too long. Normally he would go hide in his room and complain about it to Jay, but now…

His eyebrows furrowed as he thought about his relationships with his team. Zane was gone, his relationship with Kai was tumultuous at best, and following what had happened at the junkyard earlier, he had a feeling that he'd done nigh irreparable damage to his relationship with both his best friend _and_ Nya. He could hang out with Lloyd, but the kid seemed a little too preoccupied with his father to put much effort into his friendships at the moment.

And to think that not too long ago he was teaching at a school, surrounded by friends who were alive and still liked him. What a change from being on a rooftop with someone who apparently despised him enough to regret being _rescued_ by him.

He stood up. He didn't know where he was going to go—didn't want to leave Kai alone like this. But he needed to leave, even if his destination was only the other side of the rooftop.

Before he could turn around, a hand grabbed his wrist. Using strength Cole often forgot about, Kai kept him in place despite his attempts to pull his arm away.

"Wait," Kai said. He sucked in a deep breath, eyes closed. "It didn't mean it like that. I mean, I don't hate you. I barely tolerate you, but I don't hate you."

"You're making me feel so much better," Cole deadpanned. "Thank you."

"Yeah, well, it's hard to think when there's a burning hole in my stomach," Kai said. He yanked Cole's arm a bit, a physical invitation to sit down. "Sorry if my words aren't perfect enough for you. But don't leave."

Cole followed Kai's direction and sat next to him, back against the wall and only an inch of space between them. He ran a hand through his thick hair. "We should probably stop arguing. Why do we fight so much, anyways?"

"You're annoying."

"Oh, _I'm_ annoying?"

"Yeah. All you do is tell me what to do. It's annoying."

"What do you _want_ me to do? I was designated leader for no reason!" Cole argued, voice raising a pitch as he defended himself. "The others never had a problem with it."

"Well, the others don't generate original thoughts like I do," Kai said, lips turning into a sly smile. "They're kinda like sheep."

Cole couldn't help himself. He smacked Kai's arm and ignored the red ninja's _hiss_ in response. "Shut up. I can't believe you just said that unironically."

"I'm just saying that we would get along a lot better if you stopped getting mad at me."

Cole gestured to Kai's injury. "Yeah, yelling at you for being risky is totally unwarranted. You would never get hurt, ever. You're invincible. A god among men. Impervious to all forms of destruction."

Kai waved his hand in a dismissive gesture. "Give me a few more crunches and my abs will deflect bullets. Promise."

Cole swallowed a burst of laughter that threatened to leave his throat. "I hate you."

"Nah. You wish you could, though."

"Hating a team member would be pretty counterproductive."

"Given what's going on now, you would really know, huh?" Kai said. Cole resisted the urge to hit him again. "Hey, it's not _your_ fault all that stuff happened. And you're right that it's not really your fault that we argue so much. Maybe you're just too nice. Too _caring_. Makes it easy to take things out on you, 'cause we know you'll always forgive us."

"I don't forgive _everyone_."

Kai held up a hand. "I don't need more father angst. Let's not dive too deep into your tragic backstory and focus on the _now_."

"Like us?"

"Like us."

"I don't really know what else there is to say."

"I do. But I feel like it's kinda messed up to talk about it right now."

"Is there ever a good time to talk about things?"

Kai looked at his feet, face solemn. Inanimate. It seemed foreign on him. "Maybe I…" he trailed off. He fell silent for a moment, then continued. "I get mad at you 'cause it's annoying. It's annoying to mess up so often. I don't mind messing up in front of the others. It's not as embarrassing. But when it's you, I just get _mad_. At myself. Then at you."

Cole blinks. He never expected this.

"Me? Why do _I_ matter?"

Kai buried his face in his hands and groaned loudly. "Holy shit. You're oblivious."

"You're being vague! Stop it."

Kai pulled his hands away and whipped his head to face Cole. The words came out so quick that Cole almost didn't understand them.

"Can I kiss you?"

Cole swallowed nervously. A sudden coldness spread through his chest. "What?"

"You heard me."

Cole didn't like to rush into anything. He liked to think, to plan, to always be prepared. He never _improvised_.

So, it surprised even him when he answered before a single thought could form in his head.

"Yes."

Kai closed the space between them, bringing his hands to the back of Cole's head to pull him forward. Their lips made contact, and it was _wetter_ than Cole had ever imagined kissing would be, and it only took a moment for Kai to whisper an _ow_ into his mouth and then pull away.

"I'm usually sexier than this, I swear," Kai said, and Cole laughed.

He laughed airily, lightly, even as snow tumbled down around them. Like a weight off his chest, this felt good, and he wondered if these feelings were new or the result of something that had been burning inside for months.

As they went in again, and Cole could hear the celebrations of his teammates as the nindroid army arrived to help, he decided that he didn't care. Even as the team fell apart, even if they kept arguing after this, they would still have each other's backs. No matter what.

what the fuck is a lumberjack anyways, lmao?


End file.
